1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing apparatus control method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a printing method, termed variable data printing (VDP), has been put into practice. In VDP, private information, which is included in a monthly invoice or transaction specification and differs customer by customer, and a content that a customer, who receives a direct mail, may take interest in are appropriately selected uniquely for each customer and the selected private information and content are printed.
As a method that implements VDP, portable document format (PDF)/variable and transactional (VT) has been introduced. The PDF/VT is a data format, which is a sub set specification of PDF format regulated by Adobe° Systems, Inc. The specification of PDF/VT is currently being developed by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and named ISO 1612-2 as a standard PDF format for variable printing.
As a characteristic of PDF/VT, PDF/VT includes “XObjects”, which is a concept related to a drawing object, and “DPart”, which is a concept related to management of attribute information. XObjects defines a drawing object as a reusable object. By using XObjects, a reusable object can be referred to from a PDF file a plurality of times.
In conventional PDF, it is necessary for an information processing apparatus that executes printing, to execute drawing of a drawing object included in print data for a number of times equivalent to the number of appearances of the drawing object in the print data. Suppose that the same corporate logo is included in all page data of 10,000 pages. In this case, it is necessary for an information processing apparatus to execute drawing of the same logo data 10,000 times in total for the pages. On the other hand, in PDF/VT, by using XObjects, the information processing apparatus can refer to a reusable object that appears in a first page, any number of times during processing of PDF data.
More specifically, if the information processing apparatus has generated intermediate data based on the reusable object that appears in the first page and if reference of the reusable object arises in a subsequent page, then the information processing apparatus generates a raster image (executes rasterization) based on the generated intermediate data. Accordingly, it becomes unnecessary for the information processing apparatus to generate intermediate data again based on the same reusable object for the subsequent page. Therefore, printing can be efficiently executed.
On the other hand, DPart is an information management area for managing attribute information in a hierarchical structure. By using DPart, a creator of PDF data can set an arbitrary attribute in PDF data.
In conventional PDF, it is necessary for an information processing apparatus to execute data processing in order of appearances of page information. However, by using DPart, i.e., by utilizing and referring to attribute information managed by DPart, the information processing apparatus can search for or extract and process a page including specific information. In addition, in this case, the information processing apparatus can group pages based on attribute information and process the group of pages. To paraphrase this, in PDF/VT, the information processing apparatus can efficiently execute processing by utilizing a reusable object in executing drawing of input data.
In PDF/VT also, an information processing apparatus may execute drawing in order of pages defined in input data. If an information processing apparatus processes data in order of pages defined in input data, the productivity may decrease because the throughput is affected after rasterization. The cause of degradation of productivity that may occur if a printing apparatus is used as the above-described information processing apparatus will be described below.
Suppose that a printing apparatus executes drawing of data in order of pages and that records including pages that refer to mutually different reusable objects successively exist. In this case, it is necessary for the printing apparatus to execute drawing of the reusable object every time the processing shifts to processing of a subsequent record. As a result, the printing capacity of the printing apparatus may decrease (i.e., a phenomenon of cycledown may occur).
In other words, if data to be printed is not ready at an appropriate timing, processing of a flow of print processing that is downstream thereof is suspended. This phenomenon is called “cycledown”.
More specifically, a conventional printing apparatus, such as a printing apparatus having an electrophotographic type print engine or a printing apparatus that executes offset printing, includes a print engine that serially processes raster images transmitted from a drawing processing unit and transfers a toner or an ink onto a recording paper. The printing apparatus like this includes a mechanism that generates heat and uses a chemical agent during transfer processing.
Accordingly, if raster images are not transmitted from a drawing processing unit for a predetermined period of time, the printing apparatus suspends the processing in order to prevent otherwise possible mechanical affect on the print engine. If the operation of the printing apparatus is suspended during serial printing, several tens of seconds may be required to calibrate and recondition the printing apparatus, which is required to restore the printable operation status of the printing apparatus. In this case, the phenomenon of cycledown occurs.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-226465 discusses an image output system that determines the degree of overlap among part information that indicates variable data of a plurality of pages, divides and arranges the plurality of pages in descending order of the overlap degree, and outputs an image of each divided page.
Even in a printing apparatus that executes drawing by referring to a reusable object, the phenomenon of cycledown may occur when the printing apparatus executes drawing of data in order of pages defined in input data. In this case, the productivity may decrease.
If a direct mail having a plurality of pages is to be sent to one customer, it is desired to output a plurality of pages as one product in the unit of a predetermined attribute. In this case, the image output system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-226465 cannot meet the desire.
To paraphrase this, in the image output system, a plurality of pages is divided into pages and an image is output in the unit of the divided page. Accordingly, all pages may not be image-processed by the same image forming apparatus (i.e., the pages may be image-processed by different image forming apparatuses).
More specifically, in the image output system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-226465, in inserting the output product into an envelope, it is necessary to sort the print products for each customer, who is the target of sending the product, by using a sorter or by hand.